18 replies to this topic

[Live Forever]

Link to list of 100 Science Fiction books you just have to read. How many of them have you read? ...or are there any that should be on the list but aren't?


(also has 50 Sci Fi Movies you just have to see)

[John Schloendorn]

Shameful -- Greg Egan is missing.

[jaydfox]

Lucifer's Hammer comes to mind...

[Shepard]

I've read 29 of the books, seen 37 of the movies.

[stephen]

Shameful -- Greg Egan is missing.

What type of list could it be without Greg Egan? Definitely my favorite sci-fi writer of all time. Such fascinating novels! (Diaspora was actually instrumental in my present interest in immortality...)

They skip over Neal Stephenson's Diamond Age, as well. My second favorite novel of all time.

John -- have you run across any writers similar to Egan? I'd love to discover some books that are as good as Permutation City, Distress, and Diaspora...!

[MichaelAnissimov]

I hate long lists of movies or books that people "have" to watch or read. The only material we "have" to read as transhumanists comes from non-fiction. All transhumanists love Egan, but I think he is boring (sorry, John ) ). The only sci-fi authors I can truly enjoy are Wright and PKD.

[chubtoad]

I've read a bunch of these. I thought Hitchhikers and Alice in Wonderland were interesting but found the rest kind of boring.

[Centurion]

Read them all except mutant, timescape and alice in wonderland. I do believe that caves of steel deserves to be in there though.

[quadclops]

Needs added:

The Fountains of Paradise by Arthur C. Clarke

First mention of a "space elevator" that I ever read of. Have been waiting for it ever since. [sad]

[psudoname]

A while ago I got bored of reading some serious sci-fi because idears that were new and interesting are just boring now. Also their visions of the future have nothing like the progress there will be in real life (although at least Vernor Vinge addmitted he'd slowed down progress for plot reasons)

[jaydfox]

What was wrong with Timescape? That was the one in La Jolla circa 1963 and Cambridge circa 1998, right? Admittedly the science was a bit spotty, but I enjoyed it anyway.

[jaydfox]

Also their visions of the future have nothing like the progress there will be in real life (although at least Vernor Vinge addmitted he'd slowed down progress for plot reasons)

I know what you mean. One of my favorite sci-fi/fantasy series recently was Peter F. Hamilton's Night's Dawn trilogy (Reality Dysfunction, Neutronium Alchemist, The Naked God). It takes place in the early 2600's, but a lot of the "current" tech from that time will likely be available within the next 100 years.

But if you put the timelines aside, there is a lot of fascinating tech. I'm not sure how much of it is original, how much is just a new twist on old ideas, and how much is just plain old ideas. But pulled together as a collection, I very much enjoyed it. If the storyline doesn't fit your tastes, you might still consider reading the first two books (Reality Dysfunction, parts 1 and 2), just to see the tech. My favorite was neural nanonics, a form of BCI through nanotech. I also liked the Edenists' living habitats.

Hamilton must have rushed the last three or four books to press, because the spellings of last names changed (e.g., Thakrar to Thakara), and distances started changing (1,600 light-years became 16,000, at one point in the fifth or sixth book). The editor did a shoddy job on the last two books. But that didn't detract from the ideas, at least for me.

[Centurion]

I know what you mean. One of my favorite sci-fi/fantasy series recently was Peter F. Hamilton's Night's Dawn trilogy (Reality Dysfunction, Neutronium Alchemist, The Naked God). It takes place in the early 2600's, but a lot of the "current" tech from that time will likely be available within the next 100 years.

I think the reason behind such a discrepancy may be a result of the author's being aware of the limits on his foresight. In my opinion, when futurists speculate on what technology is available in the future, the farther into the future the speculation takes place, the greater the potential void between the actual technology of the time and what is speculated.

I remember much to my amusement seeing a repeat of an old futurist bbc program a few weeks ago, which took place in the 70s and predicted that by the year 2000 we would be able to create food from thin air.

Perhaps authors tend to err on the side of caution rather than be caught out seeing things a tad too rose tinted as was the case in the aforementioned program.

I apologise if what I just said lacks coherence, its 2am here and I just finished working on a practice test paper for statistics. My brain is slush.

[John Schloendorn]

John -- have you run across any writers similar to Egan?

No.

[MichaelAnissimov]

No.

Ever read any of John Wright's Golden Age trilogy? It's of similar intensity and future shock.

[dangerousideas]

I have read almost everything on the list. However, my best loved and most personally influential SF novel of all time did not make their list:

Time Enough for Love - Robert A. Heinlein

from the cover...

Lazarus Long 1916-4272

The capstone and crowning achievement of Heinlein's famous Future History, "Time Enough for Love" follows Lazarus Long through a vast and magnificent timescape of centuries and worlds.  Heinlein's longest and most ambitious work, it is the story of a man so in love with Life that he refused to stop living it; and so in love with Time that he became his own ancestor.

An excerpt...

"Ira! Galahad! Got him?"
"Yes! Hoist us in! Oh, what a mess! Ish, about two liters and lots of jelly."
"Get him inside and let me see him. Lor, you can get us out of here now."
"Seal up, Dora, and bounce it!"
"Sealed and zooming! Screens down! What the goddamn hell have the done to Boss?"
"I'm trying to find out, Dora. Be ready with the tank; I may freeze him."
"Ready now, Ish. Laz-Lor, I told you we should pick him up sooner.  I told you."
"Pipe down, Dora.  We told him he'd get his ass shot off.  But he was having more fun than kittens--"
"-- and wouldn't have thanked us--"
"-- and wouldn't have come--"
"-- you know how stubborn he is."
"Tamara," said Istar, "cuddle his head and talk to him.  Keep him alive.  I don't want to freeze him - if at all - until I've made temporary repairs.  Hamadryad, clamp there! Mm.. Galahad, one slug hit the Finder.  That's how his intestines got so chopped up."
"Clone-trans?"
"Perhaps.  The way he regenerates, repair and support may be enough.  Justin, you were right; the dates on his letters did prove that he didn't last through it; losing the Finder's signal pinpointed when and where.  Galahad, are you finding more fragments?  I want to close him.  Tamara, rouse him, make him talk! I don't want to have to freeze him.  The rest of you shut up and get out!  Go help Minerva with the children."
"Glad to," Justin said hoarsely.  "I'm, about to throw up."
"Maureen?" Lazarus murmured.
"I'm here, darling," Tamara answered, cradling his head against her breasts.
"Bad .. dream.  Thought .. I was .. dead."
"Just a dream, Beloved.  You cannot die."

[knite]

Robert Heinlein is my favorite writer as well, my favorite book, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, did not make the list, but my VERY close second, Stranger in a Strange Land, did, yay.

[jedsen]

I second almost anything by Greg Egan, excluding Schild's Ladder (which was just okay).

[basho]

A few of my favourite authors:

• Greg Egan - Permutation City and Diaspora are two of my alltime favourites
• Peter F. Hamilton
• Dan Simmons
• Iain M. Banks - anyone else love Feersum Endjinn?
• Alastair Reynolds
• Chris Moriarty
• John C. Wright - especially The Golden Age for all you post and trans humanists
• Vernor Vinge - favourite: Marooned in Realtime
• David Zindell - only his early novels like Neverness and The Broken God

And there are so many more!